Thoughts on Popular Culture and Unpopular Culture by Jaime J. Weinman (email me)

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Ollie Johnston

Update: Here is a 1956 Los Angeles Times article on Ollie Johnston's other great lifelong enthusiasm -- restoring and running antique trains. (Click to enlarge.) I know it's not related to his animation work, but I somehow feel like I can see that enthusiasm -- or maybe the fact that he just was so enthusiastic -- in his work. Obviously his animation does not depend on what he did in his off hours, but his work was that of a man who didn't do just what was required and no more. A man who has a hobby is a man who enjoys working hard at the things he loves, whether it's drawings or locomotives.

The Live Steaming clam-bake shown here took place at the Flintridge, Calif. home of Oliver Johnston. His layout, with 970 feet of track, is one of the largest in the west.

It takes about 5,000 hours to make a good model and minimum cost to have one built for you is $5,000 (Live Steamer Walt Disney recently had two built for Disneyland, cost: $35,000 apiece). Plans are procured from a railroad, then scaled down to 1/24, the most popular size. Most workmen scorn buying parts, make even their own nuts and bolts.

Johnston's La Cañada Valley 515 is a typical model. The locomotive is three feet, 11 inches long, weighs 251 pounds. The tender is three feet even, weighs 90 pounds loaded, which includes 45 pounds of water and the Live Steamer's favorite fuel: pea-size Welsh coal.

Nothing much happens on a run, unless a boiler explodes (very rare) or a flying cinder hits a shirt hanging on the line (pretty common). Mostly, the train just puffs and smokes around the track whistling for a grade crossing, stopping to take on water, finally pulling into the station.

Just, in fact, all the wonderful, exciting, fascinating things that make life, for a Live Steamer, really worth living.